So, everybody has an opinion about Billy Beane. It’s not that he’s under more scrutiny than his peers--that distinction belongs to the larger-market GMs.  Rather, because of a certain best-selling book which must not be named (not again), Billy has come to stand for all sorts of things--like the ideas that walks are under-valued and steals are over-valued--or at least used to be.  More than anything, though, I think Billy came to stand for the idea that a smart general manager can make up for financial disadvantages.  It was particularly bold for him to allow himself to stand for that idea, and for those who agreed with it, he became celebrated--even labeled by some as a genius.  Then there were those who disagreed--they still write the “fIRe BeAnE hE sUCKs aNd sHouLD Go JOIn hiS PAl MAchO,” fAnPOsts on this site.

Poll

Do you approve of Billy Beane's job performance as general manager?

78%

Yes

250 votes

21%

No

67 votes

317 votes | Poll has closed

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Alas, the Fanpost editor has stymied all of our top DLD talents.  With them on a work stoppage, amateurs like myself step into the void. Alas ...

Bruce Jenkins wrote a column mostly from the Giants' perspective, after the A's 23-5 win on Friday.  After attempting to soothe Giants fans' fears by saying they shouldn't give up on Zito yet, he went on to address the general bland-ness of Bay Area managers. 

A good way to fall asleep - and I mean completely gone, complete with snoring and drooling - is to listen to Bruce Bochy or Bob Geren, respective managers of the Giants and A's. Don't get me wrong; they're terrific guys. They're just not too lively, and each is presiding over a deathly quiet camp

But boring ain't all bad, Jenkins points out.  He asks if you would prefer the camp of Manny Acta's Washington Nationals, whose camp features a guy with an infamous reputation (Elijah Dukes),  the sibling of another such infamous guy (Dmitri Young), another guy whose reputation might be headed in that direction (Lastings Milledge) and two guys with all sorts of steroids taint on their reps (Bret Boone and Paul LoDuca).  (Characterizations are Jenkins', paraphrased)

The KC Star's Joe Posnanski is no sabermatrician, but he does like to tinker with stats occasionally.  In the most two recent entries on his blog, he questions whether teams need a certain number of star players to win, or whether they can cobble together pennants by amassing high quantites of merely above-average players.  The funnest part of the column is where he determines who all the star players were in the American League last year.

Boston 8 (Varitek, Youkilis, Pedroia, Lowell, Manny, Ortiz, Beckett, Schilling).
New York 7 (Posada, Cano, Jeter, A-Rod, Matsui, Abreu, Wang).
Cleveland 7 (Martinez, Garko, Peralta, Sizemore, Hafner, Carmona, Sabathia).
Anaheim 6 (Kotchman, Figgins, Anderson, Vlady, Lackey, Escobar)
Detroit 6 (Polanco, Guillen, Granderson, Ordonez, Sheffield, Verlander).
Baltimore 5 (Roberts, Markakis, Tejada, Bedard, Guthrie)
Seattle 4 (Beltre, Ibanez, Suzuki, Guillen).
Minnesota 4 (Mauer, Morneau, Hunter, Santana).
Toronto: 4 (Glaus, Rios, Thomas, Halladay … Burnett just missed).
Tampa Bay 4 (Pena, Crawford, Upton, Kazmir)
Chicago 3 (Thome, Vazquez, Buehrle).
Oakland 2 (Haren, Swisher).
Kansas City 2 (Meche, Bannister)
Texas 1 (Young)

Oh well.

Also, pimping Ray Ratto like I always do:  on stadiums selling out their naming rights.  The latest is that Wrigley might do so.

Dump away.

So I'm Rubin Sierra, but those of you who know me probably know me as "that guy who's always talking about how much he likes Ray Ratto."  But I don't just like Ray Ratto; I like sportswriting in general, and I'm rather opinionated about what I like.  While I don't generally agree with AN as to what constitutes good sportswriting (see above), the opinions of AN have expanded the number of columnists I read a bit.  Years ago, somebody in AN turned me on to ESPN's Bill Simmons, who I've since read pretty regularly, even if he is a bit long-winded and a bit too much of a frat-boy.  More recently, I've gotten hip to the stylings of The Kansas City Star's Joe Posnanski.  I like.

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So somewhere in the 609-comment Swisher thread, there's a link to a strangely-abbreviated Ray Ratto column. However, while AN did get the chance to weigh in on RR's latest bold prediction, I think we all missed Ratto's latest ponderous musings:  Until now.

This is about how Billy Beane has traded his way into needing a drawing card just to make the 90 losses seem more palatable, and how his ongoing fascination with Bonds may just get the better of him at last.

Poll

Bonds: want him or not

36%

Want him

73 votes

63%

Don't want him

128 votes

201 votes | Poll has closed

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First-time dumper, long-time lurker.  

This dump is in honor of the great Kevin Thompson, who the Pirates stole away from us on this sad, sad Monday.

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Blaming the Media is one of our favorite pasttimes, right up there with whining about the other team's lack of class and Blaming the Umpires.  But sometimes, the media earns its bad reputation.  Like today.

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<vent>
Go ahead and bash Zito for his control issues.  Dude walks too many people.  Bash him for falling short of his potential:  After his Cy Young 2002, I think we all expected better than the 2003-06 that he delivered.  So bash him for peaking too early in his career.

But for God's sake, stop bashing him for his decision to sign with the Giants.

Oh, hell, keep doing it if it makes you feel better about yourself. After all, this guy had a major life decision to make, one in which millions of dollars hung in the balance, one that would decide where he'd spend the next 5-7 years of his life--and whose interests did he look out for? His own!? How dare he!?

It was suggested elsewhere on this website that Zito could have conceivably taken half of the $126 milliion  the Giants gave him to return to the A's.  It was stated that "if I'm truly going to admire one of these athletes as an individual beyond the game, it's going to take action like" that.

Well how about this:  thank God for Zito and those that know him that he has his priorities straight, and that he's more concerned with his own well-being than he is with earning the admiration of fans whom he doesn't know from Adam Piatt.  

Guys like Zito have hit the lottery by having a major talent in a major sport, and they are being paid as lottery-winners.  And they have a chance to use that money as we all dream we would if we won the lottery--to make themselves and their families set for life, to never have to worry about money again.  If they're generous, to give some of it to charity.

And a drawback of all this is that they are going to have to live the rest of their lives with people wanting to take some of that money from them--people who say 'after all, you don't really need it, you have so much.'  People will come to them with a million causes they should support, a million investment opportunities they should get involved in, a million ideas about what they should do with their money.  

And that's what I'm hearing when I hear some of you questioning Zito's decision to take the biggest contract offered him: You are complaining that he didn't donate to your cause, one of the most ludicrous causes I've ever heard of:  it's the "take less money to play for my favorite team, because it's the team you played with last year" cause.

Or the even-more-ridiculous, "take less money to play with a team that I think has a better chance of winning a championship" cause. Never mind that your opinion of which team has the better chance of winning a championship is as worthless as Harold Reynolds'. How is it admirable to opt to play for a front-runner? If the Yankees and the Royals were the main bidders for Zito, explain to me how admirable it would be for Zito to take less to play for the Yankees. In truth, players in general do prefer to play for good teams over bad ones, but the size of the discount they will give good teams is a sign not of nobility but of a different KIND of selfishness.

Now, if Zito were to agree to donate his salary to these causes of yours, where would the money go to?  Ahh, I know--to needy baseball executives, who would get to pay players less and pocket the extra money for themselves.

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I didn't realize the song I was covering (Wonderwall, Oasis--here's 30 seconds worth of the sound, so you can get it stuck in your head like it was in '98) was so short; but then, I'm glad it is, because I've got to go to sleep.  Feel free to add more verses.

Kotsay is gonna be the A
That is gonna bat number two,
And now, saint's havin' a cow
Saying Macha you don't have a clue
I don't believe that Stomper isn't
really FSU. <tears oblique> ooooowwww

Drumbeat, in the bleachers high street
Close enough to hear M-Bradley shout.
Swish-er went to visit Jennifer
He's in the basement and he can't get out.
Blez doesn't believe we're gonna need
A transcription of that interview ... <tears oblique> ooooowwwww

And all the monkeys' blindfolds--well, they're blinding
And still they type out insights and they're rhyming
There are many posts that I
Would like to reply to
But I don't know how

Bobby Crosbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Not funnier than Bill Cosbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
But snerk-iest of allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Is our monkeyballllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Full lyrics of wonderwall here. As you can see, the above verses simply repeat in various orders; although like I suggested before, perhaps some more verses are called for.  Just not tonight.  

Sort of a hippy/progressive report card, like they used to have (and maybe still do have) at Santa Cruz.  Also, the reports will be not so much evaluations but rather little discoveries I make when checking each player's on-line profile.  Or litle snerky remarks I've been wanting to "report" about each player.  

position players
Jason Kendall:  After an 0-for on Tuesday, Kendall's .271 average is exactly what it was at the end of 2005.
Mark Kotsay:  clubhouse veteran is still young enough to have started his career with the expansion Marlins.  
Milton Bradley:  I still can't believe he hit a walkoff 3-run jack against B.J. Ryan on AN Day.  As long as we can keep him on the field, this guy is definitely a "Gamer".
Frank Thomas:  I can't stop dreading watching him walk in the offseason.  
Eric Chavez:  Our lovable head case.
Jay Payton:  Our Kotsay Lite is having an up-year, compensating for Kotsay's down-year.
Nick Swisher: Seems to have regressed to last year's mean.  What?  What did I say?
Bobby Crosby: Has stolen 8 bases in 9 attempts.  <dodges negativity>
Mark Ellis: Continues to be the team's most unicorn-friendly player.  
Marco Scutaro:  Is approaching Mike Gallego-like status in terms of impressively staying in or near the everyday lineup despite all expectations to the contrary.  
Antonio Perez:  A lovable underdog in a different sense than Scutaro--in the sense that anybody hitting under .100 in August is a lovable underdog.
Dan Johnson:  Would replace Perez on major-league roster if not for some rule about options.  
Bobby Kielty:  Continues to stubbornly prevent the 2003 Lilly-for-Kielty deal from being characterized as a total disaster.
Adam Melhuse: Is two years older than Kendall.

pitchers
Barry Zito:  It's not his choice of agents that makes me sure he's gone; it's Beane's comment that the team will have to operate "the same way it has" until some stadium dollars have materialized.  
Dan Haren:  Consistently on the verge of great.
Joe Blanton:  Consistently on the verge of good.
Esteban Loaiza:  Consistently mediocre, no verge about it.
Rich Harden:  The bitterest pill of 2006.  
Kirk Sarloos:  Like Melhuse, always a guy the A's go to reluctantly.  
Shane Komine:  Not the savior he initially appeared to be.  But still, potentially, pretty good.
Brad Halsey:  Making us forget Juan Cruz.
Chad Gaudin:  Making us forget the minor leaguer(s) and/or cash considerations and/or draft picks we traded for him.  Making us forget how the hell we ever got him.
Joe Kennedy:  On the DL.  
Ron Flores:  Trying to make us forget Joe Kennedy.  
Jay Witasick:  Last pitched June 19 in Colorado.  Last posted July 27th in "Calling the ladies of AN."
Kiko Calero:  Very solid.  In 2003, he was a 28-year-old rookie.
Justin Duchscherer: Too good to have only pitched 35 innings this year.
Huston Street:  Not lights out, but lights dimmed significantly, making a rally much more difficult to start.

Poll

What grade do you give the A's?

20%

The A's need to apply themselves more.

5 votes

20%

The A's are creative

5 votes

12%

The A's can focus when they're interested in the game.

3 votes

24%

The A's help me see the world in different ways.

6 votes

24%

The A's are emerging as spellers.

6 votes

25 votes | Poll has closed

Things are not what they appear; not always, anyway.  This would appear to many, for example,  to be a dreary-dull time in the sports calendar, a time during which PTI leads with stories on the Buick Open, on Floyd Landis, and on NFL preseason.  But we A's fans know it as the best time of the year:  Fire season, if you will, when our green-and-gold enigmas (they're great; no wait, they suck, time to lower expectations) ignite their secret win-win-win machines.  

Just as things are not as they seem in the sports world, so it is on AN.   On first glance, nothing remarkable about August 7 on AN.  But upon further review--helluva day, folks.  

And to try the analogy one more time:  Surface appearance would tell you that the diary Wow. by AsFoLife would have little in common with the diary A Defense of Reason and Sanity by oaktoon.   And this time on closer examination, there are plenty more differences.  But there is also one profound similarity:  unintentional comedy.

Poll

Quote of the Day

10%

"WTF is wrong with you people TASTELESS COMMENTS. I'm disgusted. Mocking a 10 year old's horrible painful death." by eshock

4 votes

33%

"Nice win bitches!" by Tony

13 votes

30%

"Also, are you trying to win the 'Most Ironic Diary Title Ever' award? :-)" by jeepers

12 votes

7%

"What Is Wonderful About This Discussion is the coexistence of learned intellectual discussion (complete with big words) with the most goofy badinage I've ever had the pleasure (and I mean that) to read. Wow! This is great--It's Einstein meets Pink

3 votes

5%

"I get nervous because I might set off the bomb that is oaktoon's sensitivity. I applaud his passion though and his posts and diaries are often filled with 'truthiness'. And thats the W0rd." by WhiteElephantGuy

2 votes

12%

Tony's 'shit.' comment (for text, see link in diary)

5 votes

39 votes | Poll has closed

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